While out and about in the halls of Grace King, you may have seen the lights of room 303 flicker and then suddenly go out. The lights may have gone out in the classroom, but concepts are burning burning brightly in Ms. Tahvildari’s geometry classes. Earlier in the semester, students began to learn more about the coordinate plane. For those of us who may be a bit removed from the fundamentals of geometry, we use coordinates to describe where something is. In geometry, coordinates say where points are on a grid we call the “coordinate plane“. Developed centuries ago and refined by the French mathematician René Descartes, the system is is sometimes called the Cartesian coordinate system in his honor. The coordinate plane can be used to plot points and graph lines. This system allows us to describe algebraic relationships in a visual sense, and also helps us create and interpret algebraic concepts.
As geometry is a highly visual subject area, it integrates easily with art. Students made tin foil men then drew their shadows and colored the shadows black as an introduction to a lesson on reflections in the coordinate plane.
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- Ms. T Shows a Student How to Create Information from the Shadows
